RVP Still bleeds Red & White
6
In 2010 Lebron James for those who don’t know him an NBA player became a free agent. Prior to that he was playing for the Cleveland Cavaliers whom he had given a lot of great years. One thing that Lebron hadn’t managed to do was win a Championship with the Cavalliers. Always rated to be one of the best players in NBA who hadn’t won a Championship. When Lebron announced his decision to Join The Heat who were planning to become the Manchester City/PSG of the NBA. His decision was met with heavy criticism and a media frenzy, thousands of virals of angry fans, burning of jerseys and the old classic death threats. Fast forward now Lebron was voted NBA finals MVP and has now won his first Championship.
I don’t want to educate people about the NBA here as I don’t think theres a lot of interest in it and after all this is a football blog. As a fan its difficult to understand why a player can just move without the motivation of money. For example our old Togolese friend is refusing to sign a contract at sp*** because they cant offer him the amount of salary that he is being given to by the sheikh’s in bucket loads. Samir Nasri, we understand Manchester United were first in for him and wanted him more than Manchester City but he choose to dab his ink where there was more zeros. Is it any coincidence that the biggest players in the world Zlatan, Thiago Silva, Aguero, etc sign for the clubs that offer the most money? Is this trend because they feel there is a better chance of winning things at these money rich clubs or is it because they want a better pay package?
As a fan I like nothing and sitting with friends and berating how Chelsea, Manchester City and PSG are ruining football by injecting unrealistic money into clubs thus corrupting the whole system. Its all fair enough But we Arsenal ourselves have been just as guilty in doing this just like Manchester city albeit with less zeros but its like stealing someone stealing a TV and another one stealing a toaster there might be less value on the toaster but its stealing none the less. Let me expand, Arsenals policy was to sign a lot of young players from mainly Europe taking them from the best academies around and offering twice/3 times the amount they earned at these clubs. When these players join they say things like ‘I’m glad to be joining Arsenal because they give young players the chance’ None of them ever say I’m joining Arsenal because I can now earn 4 times more than my former team mates. In a way maybe some of these young players view Arsenal as a stepping stone or a booster seat to their career even though history proves that for the most part the young players that leave Arsenal never really make it. Why do you leave the club you grew up at and come to a different country? Is it because you get a chance to play more or maybe the nice pay package made the decision easy
So the curious case of Mr Robin Van Persie, there is a famous picture of him sitting in his room decorated in red and white and also wearing a JVC Arsenal shirt. The boy has always been a gooner, , ‘why would he leave his favourite club?’ is some of the words fans mutter. Yes Van Persie might be a gooner and he has played for his favourite club but does that mean he has to stay and potentially not win anything and miss out on that last big payday and a sack full of trophies that comes with it? What Van Persie and Mr Kees Vos had planned is that They plan a beautiful exit plan where Robin gets fan’s pity and people turn on the board and he makes a sweet escape and stays an Arsenal Legend. WRONG! Arsenal fans are not to be underestimated and this beauty of twitter, facebook and blogs means that there is a lot of exchange of information , analysis over and over again meaning the truth or some of it will come out. The backlash was spectacular, I don’t think even Robin himself was prepared for it. Now it has left him in a situation where perhaps he doesn’t have control of it as he wished. Arsene and the board wont have it, No one wants to pay over £20 million. I am not going to speculate on if Robin refused to go on tour or not because Koscielny, Giroud, Podolski and a few others also didn’t travel. Was this done to protect Van persie or the club just had planned it? Why did Theo and Chamberlain go they were at the Euros? are all the questions people have but at the moment its all speculation.
I for one hope Robin does the right thing, show faith in the man who showed him a lot of faith and stood by him through those rape allegations, the petulance and red cards and all those injuries and the club that made him a truly world class performer. Its funny because reading Robin van Persie’s statement theres is a whiff of hypocrisy. Arsenal could have cashed in on Robin and signed a more experienced striker when the likes of Henry left. Yet the club showed faith in him and allowed him to develop. The club is changing its wage structure, investing in ready made talents. I just want Robin to reciprocate the faith that the club and fans have showed him. This summer will decide weather Robin van Persie will become an Arsenal legend or another good player that played for Arsenal.
Thanks for reading and please feel free to comment and follow me on twitter @mista_mani
Well mate, you said you want RVP to stay, but then you said Le Bron left the Cavs to Heat and finally got what he always wanted – Trophies. Are you saying the same about RVP and still saying you want him to stay?
I understand were RVP is coming from though and I think everyone does, only that he went about it the wrong way. Putting it out to the public first without informing management. Le Bron didn’t do that, I watch basketball sometimes and played college basketball, wasn’t interested in the physical act of playing football as much as I was interested in the technical and tactical aspects.
Cool post.
I tried to address what Van Persie was thinking when him and kees Vos released that statement. and like a lot of fans we are in agreement it was the wrong way to go about it. If we go another season trophyless and rvp moves to city and wins something then again the critics would say he did a lebron and it worked for him, Unlike the Cavaliers Arsenal are actually getting in top players to try and be competitive by shaping the wage structure and thinning the squad a bit and signing more ready made players. This is one of the reasons why people don’t buy the ‘we don’t agree about the direction where the club is going’ statement. But Football fans are fickle things Luka Modric stayed and had a great season and was forgiven, Rooney signed a new contract and was forgiven even though he was an utter and complete pratt. If Robin apologizes and signs i will turn a blind eye to ”that statement”.
What does RVP have to appologize for?
I watch basketball a lot and am a big Lebron James fan….Lebron James absolutely did not inform management before deciding to leave the cavs. He did worse, he went on live t.v for a one hour special documentary to announce that he won’t resign for the cavs but would be leaving for the heat. While I totally agree with his decision, the manner in which he went about it was horrible and totally disrespectful to cavs fans which is why he is still hated in cleveland. Although lebrons good intention led to $3mil for the boys and girls of america club charity, you don’t just break up with your wife on national t.v#notclassy….RVP on the other hand told we the fans what he intended to do and why via twitter which is a good thing to do. I applaud his action more coz he did it in time and if our board are in any way serious, that is enough time to buy a replacement. What’s wrong with that? And to say RVP didn’t tell management before releasing his statement is just not fair to him at all. Grimandi is on record to say that we signed giroud to replace RVP so how can management claim they were not told of his decision? Please don’t fall for this irresponsible boards lies!
Agree with most of what you say, but with a few reservations. I don’t feel we can compare teams like city splashing the cash to arsenal’s spending. Yes we do flex our financial muscle sometimes (if you could call it that) but we’ve built that muscle ourselves. All those hard hours in gym pumping iron so that we can hopefully compete with the best and be one of the best. Teams like city took a shortcut. They didn’t earn that money themselves. They didn’t spend those long hard hours in the gym. They hid somewhere in the locker rooms with some $teroids they had procured from the local dealer and took the fast track to having the ultimate beach bod. More so, all the “girls” at the beach don’t care how they got that muscle, but more so how much more they had than anyone else. Metaphors aside, we are guilty of nothing but fair competition. We worked harder, were more succesful, and thus are able to attract the right players. City just fell into a pool of money and invited whatever players they fancy for a swim.
Re van persie. Pretty much agree with you. I truly believe he loves arsenal, and part of me thinks he was just trying to pull a rooney. He played the “club lacks ambition” card very soon and didn’t even give us a chance to try to be ambitious. Only he really knows the truth, but I feel whatever his motivation, he didn’t expect such an uproar from the fans. He may have not wanted to leave at all, just trying to force arsene’s hand a bit in the market and even get a bigger slice of the salary cake. When cesc wanted to leave, everyone knew his heart was in farcelona, but we held hope that he’d change his mind and stay with us. Maybe vp thought we’d feel the same, that we wouldn’t give up on him and plead with him to stay. Now maybe we’ve forced his hand (and his transfer) and the climate is too hostile for him to stay. I’m not saying it’s our fault he’s leaving, he brought this on himself. But a big part of me feels that things just didn’t go as planned for him (whatever his plan was). Again, only he knows
Arsene-al, hmm…an interesting view you’ve got there. Maybe RVP was just trying to force Wenger’s hand and unlike Nasri did, he has not exactly blatantly jumped at the choices that seem available to him. However, I think he touched a sore spot when he mentioned “the club’s ambitions” you know how we Arsenal fans can be. And yes, I do agree with @mista_mani that football fans can be fickle, not long ago, I wrote a post on this blog on how I received hate comments from Man-U fans on my blog; today, I received, albeit only one, a hate comment from an Arsenal Fan because Wenger openly said “We are not signing” and I put out a video saying with Wenger saying exactly that and mentioned that we’ll have to keep fingers crossed.
Football is an emotional sport, that’s why people throw televisions out of windows while watching matches, lol.
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